


every cloud

by virginianwolfsnake



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen, a day in the daily punctilio office, a game of beethoven, bullying geraldine, inspired by a re-read of the unauthorised autobiography which I should never have done, lemony is a very annoying colleague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24389959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginianwolfsnake/pseuds/virginianwolfsnake
Summary: the snicket brothers (supposedly) at work.
Relationships: Geraldine Julienne/Esmé Squalor (mentioned), Jacques Snicket/Jerome Squalor (mentioned)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	every cloud

Lemony spends his days unhappily spell checking and, in the afternoons when he is bored and can no longer find the motivation to explain the difference between  _ their _ and  _ there _ to Geraldine again, gossiping with R or writing to Beatrice. He diligently tries to complete the first two tasks before he starts on his letters. This morning, in the absence of R, he is focused on the former. 

He is convinced that Geraldine is borderline illiterate and has told her so numerous times, which doesn’t seem to help her improve but is hard to resist. The dull task of reviewing her work is made even more difficult by the unfortunate need to read what she has written. Until he started his work as an editorial assistant at the Daily Punctilio, he had never imagined it possible that a person could write so many silly compliments about a performer who has  _ no _ business performing at all. The way Geraldine rhapsodises about everything from her  _ alleged _ beauty to her  _ alleged _ talent to her  _ alleged _ charm, one would be forgiven for thinking Calliope herself is on the stage. 

Circling the latest mistake in his purple pen, Lemony’s eyes flick up to regard the  _ Punctilio’s _ dramatic critic in displeasure. She catches him looking, widens her eyes and shrugs her shoulders as if to impolitely ask him  _ what now? _

“You have used the word ‘distinctive’ three times.”

Geraldine rolls her eyes, as though it is not Lemony’s job to point out these kinds of errors. “Well, is there a synonym?”

“Peculiar?” Lemony suggests sneakily, sucking the side of his mouth between his teeth to suppress his smirk. “Bizarre? Aberrant?”

Geraldine pulls a sneering face. “Very funny, Snicket Two.”

Lemony lowers his eyes back to the pages and lowers his voice, but not enough that anyone will mishear him. “Now that really  _ was _ witty. Who would  _ ever _ say you are a talentless hack?”

“ _ Nobody _ would.” Jacques interrupts from the other side of the office, where he is boredly examining loaned designer coats for this afternoon's editorial. Photographs from a recent fashion show he had tried almost every conceivable excuse not to attend lie forgotten on his desk. 

Lemony briefly loses his place in Geraldine’s simpering review as he looks up in undisguised outrage at his elder brother for siding with the enemy. Jacques despises the  _ Punctilio _ too, and certainly never wanted to be fashion editor - these days, just to be contrary, he wears his plain shirts and slacks as a twisted sort of badge of honour, as if to remind anyone he might meet that while he might have to write inane articles about why beige will never be  _ in _ again or why coconuts are the very height of fashion, he has more interesting things to think about and ways to spend his time. But he knows that they need to keep their employment here, and has always been such a stickler for the rules. 

“Geraldine, please ignore my brother. He is a louse.”

Lemony is so bored by his task, and so convinced that Jacques has used that peculiar turn of phrase on purpose, that he looks up with a smile despite the insult. 

“A mouse?” he asks innocently. “Jacques, I am quite a bit bigger than a mouse. I am almost as big as a cow.”

“A plough?” Jacques frowns, leaning marginally forward on the other side of the office with his hand cupped around his ear as though he is genuinely struggling to hear. “Where on Earth have you seen a _plough_ , Lemony - have you ever even been to a farm?”

“Alarm?” Lemony jumps from his seat, sending the pages of Geraldine’s draft scattering to the floor. “Is there a fire?”

“A  _ liar? _ How dare you. I was only -”

“ _ Stop it, all of you! _ ” Eleanora’s voice booms from her corner office. Lemony has often had the feeling that she dislikes him and Jacques too, and the silly games they play to distract themselves from their mundane jobs do not seem to encourage her to change that opinion. It is admittedly unfortunate for Geraldine, who is endlessly trying to secure her approval, and for R, who is a good writer and a generally sensible human being, that they are all lumped into the same category. 

Geraldine has gone bright red, as she does every time she is told off or whenever Lemony teases her about her little crush on such a terrible performer. “You always do this!” she hisses in a dramatically loud stage-whisper. As Jacques struggles to stop his shoulders from shaking with his poorly controlled chuckles and Lemony openly snorts, she gathers her satchel and her jacket in a huff. “I am going for lunch!” 

“Punch?” Lemony cannot help himself, and at this Jacques finally does start to laugh out loud. “You shouldn’t  _ threaten _ me, Geraldine, I’m frightened enough of you as it is!”

Geraldine’s frustrated little groan is muffled by Jacques’ laughter as she storms from the room. 

Eleanora has kicked shut her door, and, now that Geraldine has gone, the brothers are alone. Delighted at a brief lack of monitoring and therefore an opportunity to abandon his duties, Lemony leaves Geraldine’s pages on the floor (they need a full re-write anyway, as far as he is concerned) and sidles over to Jacques’ desk, where he is now placing papers neatly into a brown folder.

“Where is R?” he asks. “She hasn’t been in all morning.”

The  _ Financial Times _ is a separate paper, but they share an office and Eleanora is Editor-in-Chief at both, despite a total lack of financial awareness indicated by her shoe habit. 

“I have not engaged an army of private investigators to monitor her movements,” Jacques responds smoothly, because he is actually the louse. He finishes with his papers and stands with an air of finality as though their conversation is finished for now. “And I am  _ also _ going for lunch.”

Lemony frowns quite openly. He usually lunches with R, but when she is not around Jacques will usually extend the invite to accompany him to the flashy spots he had initially attended for work (and now secretly likes) across the City. When he quite pointedly does not do this, Lemony detects the subtle whiff of a secret in the air.

“Are you going only with your papers?” he needles, nodding to indicate the brown folder now tucked under his brother’s arm. 

“I am meeting a friend.”

“Which one?”

“That is none of your business.”

Lemony pulls a face. “Which of our  _ friends _ do you propose is interested in your fashion columns?”

Jacques rolls his eyes. “We do not share all of our friends. Don’t make us sound co-dependant.” This does very little to distract Lemony, and Jacques knows well enough by now that he will never escape or be on time for his reservation unless he gives his annoying little brother the information he is looking for. “If you absolutely  _ must _ know, Jerome proofreads them for me.”

“ _ I _ proofread them for you, Jacques. It is my job.” Lemony teasingly reminds him, with a quiet little smile. He doesn’t entirely like Jerome, but he doesn’t entirely dislike him either. 

Jacques sniffs. “Well, you are poor at it,” he gripes. “You make unsolicited changes all the time.”

This may be accurate, but it is not the real reason he is seeking this particular second pair of eyes. The youngest Snicket relents and strolls back to his own desk as his brother slips into his coat - just in time to avoid the wrath of Eleanora emerging from her office and seeing him slacking.

“Snicket, what is this mess?” she exclaims, hovering above Geraldine’s scattered review. Before he is able to explain himself - or perhaps simply state that the review is so terrible he cannot bear to give it space on his desk - she also notices something else which displeases her. Snatching up his black paperweight, she jabs a finger at a stack he has not actioned yet this morning. This is because he spends all of his time teaching Geraldine to form complete sentences, but he has a feeling saying so will not be appreciated.

“Fewer silly games please, Snickets; more actual  _ work _ .” Her eyes shift to Jacques briefly. He is not the source of her irritation but he has the misfortune of being in the blast radius. “Where are you going?”

“Lunch, Eleanora,” Jacques answers coolly. “The content for the issue tomorrow is already in your tray. I’ll be back in good time for the meeting this afternoon.”

Not for the first time, Jacques’ forward planning and silver tongue has managed to save him. Eleanora purses her lips in displeasure, mostly still directed at the younger Snicket but also because she feels her opportunity for further complaint has been rather trampled upon, but then nods and strides back into her office. 

“ _ Try _ not to antagonise her,” he advises in a low tone once their unkind Editor has gone.

“I didn’t say anything,” Lemony cannot help but grumble. He begins to leaf through the stack of drafts Eleanora has left for his attention with clear disinterest as Jacques picks up his hat.

As Lemony begins to read the third sheet in the pack, picked entirely at random, he gets such a shock that he gasps aloud. Though Jacques had been halfway out of the door, when he looks up his brother is next to him again with his brow furrowed anxiously. Wordlessly, Lemony passes him the document that has caused his discontent.

“Poor R.” Lemony says this more sincerely than he has ever said anything in the Daily Punctilio office. It is a terrible thing to lose a parent, no matter whether one is a child or an adult when it happens.

Jacques nods sadly too, looking toward R’s empty desk with pity in his eyes. “Just as well you have caught the mistake in the title, too. I cannot imagine she would be in the mood to be amused by it.”

Taking back the page, Lemony resolves to check this one very carefully to spare their friend, colleague and associate the further pain of a spelling mistake or grammatical error at an already dreadful time. “We ought to go by to see her.”

“She will be in Winnipeg by now,” Jacques says, squeezing his shoulder in comfort. “But we will be here when she comes back.”

“Will she be back?” Lemony does not like to think of what the office will be like without R, but it may soon be a reality he must face. “She is the Duchess now. She may not have time to spend in the City.”

Jacques looks like he had not thought of that. “Perhaps not.” Then, after a few moments of thought, he leans against his brother’s desk with a thoughtful look. 

“I would prefer it if she returned,” he says, in a meandering way as though he is thinking out loud. “But, if she decides not to, this may mean I am finally no longer the  _ Punctilio’s _ fashion editor.”

Jacques has an unsettling rationality to him sometimes. He is always looking at things as they are, not as they should be, and he has always been the type to keep moving rather than stand still, even in the face of something as awful as grief. Lemony, by comparison, feels the feelings of his friends so deeply that they hurt him too, no matter how self-centred that makes him seem sometimes. He knows his brother, and so he doesn’t think he is cold for thinking about what happens next so quickly - but he also finds it difficult to engage with the prospect of a change in  _ Financial Times _ staff when he is sad and worried for his friend. 

Attempting to cheer him, Jacques taps his arm with a gentle smile. “And  _ you _ may find yourself a dramatic critic.”

It was Milton who first wrote “did a sable cloud turn forth her silver lining on the night?” or, as it has been butchered into, “every cloud has a silver lining”. Lemony prefers Milton’s original version and finds it  _ distinctly _ applicable here. Perhaps now someone will pay due attention to Beatrice’s performances, and less to badly-written musicals performed by poor vocalists - or, at least, the correct  _ type _ of attention. The concept of the ire he will be able to draw from Geraldine alone is quite enlivening.

Jacques notes his improved mood immediately. He stands again, tucking his folder back under his arm and adjusting his hat.

“I wouldn’t get too excited, if I were you,” he warns. “For the first part, if you irritate Eleanora any further she will find someone else for the post. We could have another Geraldine on our hands.”

Lemony rolls his eyes, but nods.

“And  _ secondly _ ,” Jacques says slowly. “If you  _ do _ secure the job, you’ll have to attend the performances - even the ones featuring the actresses you do not write letters to all day. You cannot write a review if you were never in the audience.”

Apparently satisfied by the mixed look of excitement and horror on his brother’s face that he has given him enough to think about during his lunch break, Jacques gives him a little wave on his way out of the door.

  
  



End file.
